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Sierra Club Bulletin. 



Creator — a worthy object of national pride and a source of 

 healthful pleasure and rest for the thousands of people who may 

 annually sojourn there." John Muir and some of his interested 

 friends started the movement which resulted in this dedication 

 by Congress to the people of the nation. What right, then, has 

 any local community to step in and say, "This water supply and 

 system have been carefully preserved all these years for the 

 benefit of the public, while other available systems have passed 

 into private hands — it will be cheaper to enter this public park 

 and appropriate that which is not privately owned — only because 

 it has been devoted to a public use?" We answer without equiv- 

 ocation, it has no such right where there are other sources of 

 supply available, even if to obtain them will mean increased cost. 



That there are other available sources of supply is a fact well 

 established by engineers of great authority, and is admitted by 

 some of the foremost exponents of the Hetch-Hetchy project. 

 It is absurd to maintain that the run-off from the great roof 

 of the Sierra is confined to the Tuolumne watershed. Mr. 

 Marsden Hanson's isohyetal lines clearly establish that the 

 annual rainfall increases materially as we go north of the Tuol- 

 umne on the Sierra slopes. 



Professor C. D. Marx, of Stanford University, in his opening 

 paper read before the Commonwealth Club when the subject of 

 a water supply for San Francisco was being discussed, stated 

 that "It can readily be shown that the drainage area needed for 

 a water supply capable of furnishing 200,000,000 gallons per day 

 can be had on a number of the Sierra streams. . . , That the 

 drainage areas of streams north of the Tuolumne give better 

 promise of meeting these requirements, cannot be denied. . . . 

 It cannot be said that the physical data now available are such 

 as to admit of a reliable comparison of the relative values of the 

 various sources of water supply for San Francisco from the 

 Sierras." 



Colonel Mendell, an eminent engineer and authority on water 

 suppty systems, prepared an elaborate report on this subject 

 many years ago, and pointed out many available sources from 

 which water for a San Francisco supply could be obtained. 



There are several streams north of the Tuolumne, the waters 

 of which analysis shows to be as pure. The storage capacity on 

 some is adequate. The main objection urged is that it will be 

 more expensive to acquire the private rights which exist. In 

 this connection it must be kept in mind that nearly the entire 

 floor of Hetch-Hetchy Valley is held in private ownership, and 

 will have to be purchased or condemned; that there is an asso- 

 ciation of persons in San Jose who claim to have rights superior 

 to the city of San Francisco; and, finally, that one of the most 



